Unicode's Transliteration Rules Are Turing-Complete
Nicolas Seriot
Computation > Unicode's Transliteration Rules Are Turing-Complete
July 2026
See also: Jira is Turing-Complete
Table of Contents
Transliteration Rules
2-Tag Systems
The Collatz Function
Correctness and Universality
ICU's Rewrite Guard
Rule 110
Prime Numbers
Conclusion
Appendix: Files
I've been wondering for a while whether Unicode allows universal computation. The core Unicode algorithms (normalization, casing, bidi, collation) are deliberately bounded, but UTS #35 transliteration ...
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